Zachariah elected chair of Florida Board of Medicine

Cardiologist Zachariah P. Zachariah practices on the state’s East Coast, but his name is familiar in the Tampa Bay area as a former nonprofit leader and co-founder of an HMO.

Now he has statewide exposure.

Zachariah was recently elected the 2013 chair of the Florida Board of Medicine, a 15-member organization that licenses, educates, monitors and disciplines physicians and other health care practitioners in the state.

He was the chair of the Florida Council on Economic Education, a Tampa-based nonprofit that promotes financial literacy, from 2003 to 2006. During his tenure as the council’s chair, the organization’s executive director was fired when an audit raised questions about the council’s financial transactions.

Zachariah also is the co-founder of Universal Health Care, a health maintenance organization in St. Petersburg.